The next best thing to gambling and winning is gambling and losing.
- Nick “The Greek” Dandalos Professional gambler
died penniless, Christmas Day, 1966

When I was young, people called me a gambler. As the scale of my operations increased I became known as a speculator. Now I am called a banker. But I have been doing the same thing all the time.
- Sir Ernest Cassel Private banker to King Edward VII

Every bet represents an artificially induced crisis. Life squeezed down to a moment of all or nothing. You oscillate from feelings of wild abandonment to icy fear and back again within an instant.
- Mark CottonOne Hundred Hints for Better Betting 1994

Gaming is become so much the Fashion among the Beau-Monde, that he who in company should appear ignorant of the Games in Vogue, would be reckoned lo-bred and hardly fit for Conversation.
- Richard SeymourThe Court Gamester 1722

Gambling is a way of buying hope on credit.
- Alan WykesGambling 1964

The gambler is apparently the last optimist; he is a creature totally unmoved by experience. His belief in ultimate success cannot be shattered by financial loss, however great. He did not win today? So what? Tomorrow will be lucky. He’s lost again? It doesn’t prove a thing; someday he’s bound to win.
- E BerglerPsychology of Gambling 1957